Yes, I think it takes everyone a little searching to get everything
together to try macbsd. I know it took me a while.
But to answer a few of your questions...
> After getting a prompt I go into sh and get the ADB bug after doing an ls.
> But hey this wasnt that bad after 4 Hours.
I think this deserves a little clarification. From watching this group, it
seems there are two things people call "ADB" type problems:
1. ADB doesn't work AT ALL on some machines.
2. Everything hangs after typing a few characters.
The real ADB problem is the first one. On my IIsi at home, my ADB doesn't work
at all, so I log in over the serial line. I believe the second thing is due
to a race condition in the kernel that occurs when the screen scrolls.
> Somewhere I see a message about Mac ROM Gluing and I somehow I find a site
> reference somewhere. Turns out that it is in some odd directory (For a
> current version that is) and it includes this Booter 1.6 that everyone is
> looking for.
The MAC ROM Glue is an effort to use the MAC ROM routines to do the ADB
polling instead of accessing the hardware directly. If you are running on
a IIx, I don't think you should need the MRG kernel, since ADB works on IIx
machines. You mentioned that you could use the 'screen' program, right? Well,
if you can use the screen program and your normal keyboard, then your
ADB works. You are experiencing the race condition, I think.
> All in all this was very frustrating searching high and low for what was
> current what was current for testing and where things were. Obviously this
> stuff should all be in the FAQ, but since there are 2 of them and so many
> things are unknown or unanswered, who knows. The FTP site should be more
> organized if you want more people to get somewhere with this project.
I agree. But remember that all of this is voluntary. The Alice Group has
done an extraordinary job at this. I am still amazed that I can do as much
as I can on my Mac IIsi! The main point here is that some of the people
who have been working on this have real jobs now, and can't devote as much
time to this as they did before. I'm sure everyone would welcome a new
updated FAQ. Your outline here could be a start. Want to volunteer your
services?
> Most of them die with the ADB bug right after I get into the shell.
> (Which makes me think it isnt the same ADB bug since there isnt any
> scrolling, mousing or typing going on.) Oh I almost forgot I have the
> original Apple Extended Keyboard and an original mouse, so it aint them.
The 'race' condition doesn't appear right away. You can usually type a
few lines before it hangs. But if you can type at all from your
extended keyboard and see it on the screen, the ADB code for your machine
works. I can't get any keyboard response.
> The built-in console isnt usable, due to the control codes showing
> up/not-working. No one has written a nice little explanation of setup for
> using a serial terminal. I have no clue how the booter's serial terminal is
> set up or what I should do if I turn it on. Someone who has done this
> please jot down the process on both the mac and Un*x sides.
Here is what I do: I've got a modem cable for my mac. I've got a modem cable
for my cranky old 8088 PC. I use a null modem and hook them together. I use
some ancient version of procomm and the thing acts like a dumb terminal. Use
9600 baud, 7 bits, even parity, 1 stop bit. You can use 9600, 8, N, 1 also,
and the boot messages will show up, but the login prompt will be send in
9600, 7, E, 1 mode. Once you login, however, everything looks ok.
As you might imagine, and I've had bad results using serial console AND
having a login set up for the serial line. I suggest doing one or the other.
Clicking on the serial console button of the booter sends everything out the
serial port. If you don't use the serial console, you'll see the boot messages
on your screen (hopefully) and the login prompt only will appear over the
serial line. To turn the login on the serial line on or off, edit
the /etc/ttys file. I hope this helps.
> vi is like hell in acsii.
Time to learn ed! ;-)
> I think this project is a great idea and is looking really good so far but
> it seems like there is a lot of confusion and disorganization about it.
> 1.0 behaves more like a beta.
You may not be far off. I _think_ that they needed to time the mac 1.0 release
with the release of 1.0 on all the other platforms, so some things still
were not finalized.
Regardless, I think the effort so far has been great on developing this.
More people are needed to improve on it's current condition. You can contact
one of the Alice Group if anyone can offer their services. (Brad and Allen
seem to post to this group most often. They can probably tell you where your
time and effort could be used.)
--John
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John Wittkoski InSoft, Inc.
Senior Technical Support Engineer Phone: (717) 730-9501
Email: jpw@insoft.com Fax : (717) 730-9504
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